Saturday, July 18, 2009

In an effort to capitalize on this weekend's Romance Writers of America conference in Washington D.C., we've compiled a list of news links centered around softcore smut novels. Randy readers can repay us by sharing their favorite overwritten sex scenes in the comments section below.

Some of you may know him as drunk detective Jimmy McNulty in HBO's The Wire. Others will recognize him as the sneering rapist, Theron, in 300. Whichever, it's more than a little jarring to see actor Dominic West sitting back in his reading chair, reading aloud from British literary fiction, his voice the sort gravely, velveteen tone one usually associates with aged uncles named Alastair.Have I piqued your curiosity? Then click here to watch The Guardian UK's exclusive clip of West reading from Nicci Gerrard's latest novel, The Moment You Were Gone. While you're there, scroll down a bit, where you'll find West's equally unexpected description of his affection for Jane Austen.

Amazon must have some damned good lobbyists. The NYTimes reports, "Some influential members of the Democratic party want to give electronic reading devices to every student in the country. [...] The name of their proposal: 'A Kindle in Every Backpack.'"

Stephenie Meyer must have some shame...somewhere. EW reports, "For those of you who can’t get enough Edward and Bella, EW can announce — exclusively — that Yen Press will be publishing Twilight in graphic-novel form, publication date still to be determined. Though Korean artist Young Kim is creating the art, Meyer herself is deeply immersed in the project, reviewing every panel."

The producers of the new Harry Potter movie must have said some powerful prayers. The Australian reports, "In 2003 [...] Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, [...] said J.K.Rowling's stories of the boy wizard threatened to corrupt an understanding of Christian faith among the impressionable young. [...] Now, however, the Pope appears to have fallen under the Potter spell. The latest in the film series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, has won surprising praise from the Vatican newspaper. L'Osservatore Romano said yesterday that even though the Potter saga lacked what it called 'a reference to the transcendent,' the latest film drew 'a clear line of demarcation between good and evil, making clear that good is right, and that in some cases this involves hard work and sacrifices.'"

John Krasinski's film version of David Foster Wallace's book, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, is coming to theaters this September. (Out of curiosity, have any of you seen Krasinski in the Dave Eggers' penned film, Away We Go, yet? It's actually much better than the critics are letting on.)

And cuz I'm obsessed: Only 93 more days 'til Where The Wild Things Are is released!(Related: Assorted WTWTA links)

There's even less good news in the world of picture-less books. According to a recent survey by Publishers Weekly, 70% of the industry folk polled reported hiring freezes at their companies, 63% reported layoffs, 11% said they feel "very insecure" about their job safety, and over 60% said that their companies have cut marketing, travel and entertainment budgets. And that's not all. In another PW piece, they're reporting that bookstore sales fell 3% in May. This, after a 3.2% drop in April. Gulp.

Mega-ginormous props to Vromans Bookstore blog for steering me towards this ridiculously self-righteous, pro-book banning website. Among the site's many flaws: Consistently poor spelling, unintentionally atrocious grammar, and Barnes & Noble's corporate sponsorship. Yes, you read that right. One of the United States' (a.k.a. the home of free speech & freedom of the press) largest booksellers is sponsoring a website which proudly proclaims, "Celebrate Banned Books 2008 by helping us censor immoral and indecent books. Lets [sic] keep bad books out of our schools, libraries, and Bookstores [sic] - WWJD. [sic]"

Here's an easy post: A list of links to bookish blog posts made by our Inkwell Irregulars. Not only does it save me the time of sorting through an unwieldy assembly of AP articles featuring the words 'book,' 'publisher,' and 'bookstore,' it links you (our beloved blog reader) to them (our other beloved blog readers). Incestuous? Sort of. But this is a cult -- that sort of thing is par for the course.

Liyana is a part of the Royal Reviews online collective, a group of obsessive YA readers posting thoughtful, humorous, and sometimes scathing reviews on an almost daily basis. (Psst, Liyana -- hook us up with some reviews, too!)

John does an autobiographical web comic called Sorry. The drawing style is decidedly indie (always a good thing!), and his shades-of-blue color palette couldn't be more fitting. His most recent strip is about a family friend who committed suicide, and he's also got comics about ex-girlfriends, sleazy guy friends, and the inevitable cruelty of blind date reveals.

Oh, and if you'd like to join our slowly expanding band of backwoods, book-loving belligerents, click here. All we ask is your life-long devotion, adoration, and a firstborn or two.

The following items are just a small sampling of the handmade, literary themed crafts for sale at Etsy.com. As they're made by indie artisans, and we're an indie bookstore, we thought the links were apt.

We were a li'l late to the Twitter party, so it's our own damned fault we missed its peak. Still, how many cat-related Tweets must one scroll through before finding a choice one-liner or informative link? (My guess: The amount of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop x pi.) That's why, in an effort to help make your daily (hourly?) (minutely?) Tweet-scroll more productive (well, as productive as a deliberately distracting dalliance like Twitter can be), we're gonna start highlighting one Twitter feed per week, one we guarantee won't bore you. This week's recommendation? Children's Poet Laureate, Mary Ann Hoberman. She's peppy beyond belief, a caffeinated rainbow rhyming everything from her TV viewing habits to her to-do lists. In my head, she sounds like The Wiggles doing Shakespeare, but maybe that's just me.